Saturday, August 22, 2009

one week back to calgarylow morale, missing home, jet-lagged (tho i still think i'm jet-lag-proof;p)missing 2 days of schoolbeleagueredfeeling stoopid as usual,

those words woke me up like an alarm clock, buzzing with excitement in the wee hours of a perfect morning

it was on a lazy wednesday morning,i was asked by my preceptor to perform the MOCA (MONTREAL COGNITIVE ASSESSMENT) and the MINI MENTAL STATUS examination on a patientfor a minimum of an hour(~was not even taught properly to do so too!!! - yeah i'm a slacker)and we, a core team of 5, were divided in pairs..and i was singled out to do it on my own because i'm too lengzhai to be paired that day.. :l (lol)so i went in to the examination room, painstalkingly cursing my lack of knowledge on things at hand

there sat a timid middle aged womenwell into her 40'slooking very calm and yet tired in a way

being an honest stud (:p) i started the interview with:"to begin with, i have no clue whatsoever on what we are supposed to be doing today, so bear with me yeah?"to which she replied:"it's ok, neither do i. let's just pretend that u know ur stuffs and we'll see how it goes yeah? i'm just happy that i can help students like u to help me!"a burst of laughter and off we went into the wilderness (lol)

we went thru the whole thing as smooth as a well ironed up shirtwas actually surprised at my own achievementplus a negative results - which is good news to her as wellall in all, a yay day for us

we finished quite early (wayyyyy too early..)i get bored quite easily, can't help it, i'm a restless buggerso, being a social retard a started asking questions about any random thingskinda like a random unorganized historythen came the key moment, i asked her to show me her perscriptionshe stood up, walked to her purse with a slight unstable gaitbut she tried her best to mask it

questions after questionsthen she told me that she's not supposed to tell me that she have Multiple Sclerosis~that darn preceptor of mine trying to outwit me hey!!! hahathen we talked quite a bit about the disease and how she's handling itthe natural history etc etc

then guilt ran down my spinei didn't know that hte MOCA and mini mental assessment was quite taxing on herand to even walk a bit would squished the living daylight outta herbut still she tried to hide it.. putting on the 'i'm normal make-up'apologizing repeatedly, (altho that's a norm for me coz everytime i take histroy i used the "i'm sorry but..." charm) we continue on chatting bout how the disease is affecting her lifetrained by the calgary-cambridge guideline, i asked the "what are your main concerns" to end the session

to which she replied after a long pause and a sad look on her face:

"well to tell you the truth, i have millions concern bout what lays ahead, coz i have a cousin who, unfortunately, got the severe spectrum of this disease.. every single day is a worry to me, a struggle. but i tried not to think about it. i tried to move on with what i have.. make the best out of everything.. my family, they've been so great to me all these years and i dun wan to hold them down. i wan them to FEEL life, to have their own LIFE..it was during one of my rehab sesssion that i realized how selfish i was.. she asked me about THE CHAIR, then i retaliated, "i dun need a chair.. i can walk fine on my own!!!! then she asked me "when was ur last visit to the zoo with ur family?" i said, "a couple of years ago..." with clairvoyance before i stopped dead there.. "a few years ago...", "a few years ago!!!!".... i was holding my family back.. i'm the one with the disease but they are the one suffering from it!! then, i got the chair.. with THE CHAIR, i was able... we were able to be like a family again.. to travel.. to go to museums, my husband always wanted to go the europe, and with THE CHAIR he was able to do it with me.. and life have been good to me ever since..my mother, she was diagnosed with diabetes, and being old, she never did fall into the habit of taking her meds, she just lived on, happily with her family around her.. until the disease almost took her legs.. but she;s in a better place now, before the disease took over her.. she's definately in a better place right now.. definately..that's what i learnt from my mother...

I HAVE MS, BUT MS DOESN'T HAVE ME!!!

with a knock on the door from my preceptor, signalling the end of the session,i thanked her with teary eyes, (i said teary eyes, i didn't cried!!! that's a statement)all my respect to her strength and couragetaking human will to another levelfor the benefit of others

to end it all she said:"no, no, no, i should be thanking you instead, you are helping the likes of me with all kinds of conditions.. learn from me and other too.. study well.. may the world be a better place then with people like you. thank you.. i really enjoyed talking to you.. it was nice of u to remind me why i must fight on.. you should too, no matter how hard life eating u, just hold on and things will be ok... thank you.."

as she slowly dragged herself out of the roomall i can do is watch (fool!!! go and help her!!!)andsavour a human spirit, kindered with self sacrifice and strengthin a fragile bodybut a much more wonderful core than mine

sigh~

living with MS for 20years now with no sign of remission

multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory demyelinating disorder of the central nerve system defined by episodes disseminated in time and neuroanatomical lesion

p/s: when i was explaining to the patients about the test and how it's going to progress, due to some irritating question within the assessment, i tried to apologized beforehand by saying:"some of these questions and tasks might be a lil' bit odd and repetitive, so please do not be... (a pause)... pissed ok?"luckily i had built 'some' rapport.. otherwise i would be on the next flight back to malaysia if she were to report my 'language apt-ness' lol

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About Me

simple, non-hamsap halal malay dude, with a lot of muhibbah-ness going in and out of his life, loves to be around those who appreciate one another, treasure friendships and would love to know what's on the other side of his own bowl